Use cell phone cameras to audit development

[Ranga_The_Donga]

The Uttar Pradesh government's scheme, Supercaller, to monitor mid-day meals served to school children through mobile phones is a novel idea and worth replicating by other states. Such tracking should, however, go beyond the mid-day meal scheme, and beyond the limitation of voice communication. Mobile phones and their ubiquitously embedded cameras can be used to monitor all development programmes. It will ensure better outcomes and help curb corruption, rampant in many of these schemes.

The UP government is experimenting with cloud telephony, an internet-based platform that allows an organisation to make multiple calls. So, the mid-day meals scheme is monitored through an interactive voice response system (IVRS) based on telephone calls to teachers, with their responses being recorded on the state government's website. The state has done well to further improve the system to rule out the possibility of correct data not reaching the headquarters because of collusion between the village pradhan and the teachers.